Laoich
by reading
Summary: Strange things are happening in Beacon Hills, California. The Winchester brothers investigate.
1. Chapter 1

_Laoich_

_xxxx_

_This is set vaguely during season 8 of Supernatural and more explicitly during the first part of season 3 of Teen Wolf. It veers off emotionally from season 8 of Supernatural because I have some issues with how Dean and Sam's relationship was handled last year. It veers off story-wise (and significantly) from season 3 of Teen Wolf because I started writing as the first part of the season unfolded and couldn't follow the storyline very closely once the show moved past me. Plus. Hello? The Winchesters showed up._

_The story itself is not complete for those of you who don't read WIPs. I'm pretty sure I know where I'm headed, though, so that's encouraging. Although, fair warning, my last WIP took literally years to complete, so that's probably not encouraging. Though I did eventually finish it, so. Anyway. Proceed at your own risk. _

xxxx

_Chapter 1_

xxxx

"What do you think about this?" Sam began turning the laptop around to face his brother across the table.

Dean put his burger down and reached out to finish the rotation so he could see the screen. He frowned thoughtfully. "Weird animal attacks?"

"Deer ran straight down the highway into a car, pets unusually vicious, _all _the cats at the local vet clinic died—apparently, violently, though the reporter couldn't seem to get a straight answer from the veterinarian." He paused. For effect, Dean knew. "Oh. And an entire flock of birds flew into the high school, like flew into the exterior walls and broke windows and attacked kids in a classroom before they seem to have dropped dead." He raised an eyebrow at his brother.

"Huh." Dean turned the computer back around and returned his attention to his lunch. "Witches?"

"Maybe. Something nasty scaring them?"

Dean shrugged, swallowed the last bite of his burger, and shoved his plate away. "Where we headed?"

"Beacon Hills, California."

xxxx

"So, you want to take the vet or the sheriff?" Dean was unpacking his duffel, shaking out the "no wrinkle" button-down shirt he used with his "no wrinkle" suit and tie.

Sam shrugged. "Vet?" He was eyeing one of his own shirts critically.

Dean paused. "You sure?" He'd asked without thinking about the Amelia situation.

"Yeah." If Sam was bothered, he wasn't showing it. "Last time I was a fed with a small town sheriff, he kept scowling at my hair. I think he was suspicious."

Dean snorted. "Ya think? I don't know how we've gotten away with you as any sort of law enforcement officer given that mess."

Sam didn't rise to the bait. "Well, butch works on you better than it does me." He disappeared into the bathroom minus his suit.

"What's your cover?" Dean called after him. "Hippy-dippy animal-rights goob?"

"Independent online mag," Sam answered, muffled through a mouth of toothpaste.

Dean gave his own suit a look of active distaste. Next time he was using the independent mag cover.

xxxx

The sheriff's office was somewhat distressingly close to the motel he and Sam were staying at, so Dean had let Sam take the car while he'd walked over to talk to local law enforcement. After several hours of often awkward silence in the car on the way to Beacon Hills, some time to himself had given Dean an opportunity to shake off the lingering sense of discomfort he often felt around his brother these days.

"Sheriff Stilinski?" Dean flashed his badge. "Dean Smith, California Animal Affairs Attaché."

The sheriff raised an eyebrow at the title, but then shrugged. Dean bit down on a smug smile. He'd told Sam that the position would fly in California.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Smith?" The sheriff motioned Dean down a hall toward what Dean assumed would be his office.

The sheriff led the way into a small room near the back of the building. There was a teenaged boy lounging in the chair across from the sheriff's desk. The sheriff pointed at the kid. "School."

The boy flashed Dean a curious glance as he ducked out the door.

Sheriff Stilinski gestured at the chair that had just been vacated. Dean took a seat; it was still warm.

"We've gotten reports of atypical animal behavior in town, and my boss wants a report on animal welfare in the area. There's concern that our animal brothers and sisters may be making an outcry." There was something about being in California that made Dean want to push the envelope in terms of just how flakey he could be. It drove Sam crazy.

The sheriff gave him a flat stare. "An 'outcry.'" he repeated. Both eyebrows had gone up at "animal brothers and sisters," but the man hadn't commented on that specific phrasing.

_Ooops_. Dean might have picked the wrong person to play this particular game with.

"Look." Dean altered his tone, and shifted as if he were uncomfortable. "I'm just the messenger here. When we get multiple reports of odd behavior by critters in an area, we've got to investigate." He shrugged. "Some people love that animal brother/sisters crap." He gave the sheriff a quick grin. "Some people don't."

The sheriff's face softened somewhat. "Yeah." He sighed. "I can assure you we've taken this situation seriously. I've talked to everyone I can think of – I just haven't gotten anywhere. There's no evidence as far as I can see of abuse that might cause the animals to act this way. And if they're doing it on their own, no one seems to know _why_."

Dean nodded and made a note. "Can you tell me who you've talked to? I just need to hear it from the horse's mouth."

Nodding easily enough, the sheriff rooted through a stack of files on his desk. He pulled one out of the pile, opened it, and gave Dean the list.

xxxx

Sam had noticed the moment Dean realized he'd mentioned the word "vet" and the connection to Amelia, but Sam had made a point not to react. He knew it hadn't been intentional on Dean's part; they seemed to have reached a state of détente regarding Sam's time with Amelia. And Sam hadn't been willing to risk a re-escalation of hostilities by letting Dean know he'd been bothered by it.

The truth was that Sam's own internal stutter had been tied not to his feelings for Amelia, but to what that time with Amelia signified in his relationship with his brother these days – Sam's failure to look for Dean while he'd been in Purgatory. The weight of that choice sat heavily on Sam's shoulders now, and he knew Dean had been hurt deeply when Sam had revealed that. He'd seen the evidence of it on Dean's face after he'd said so casually, "We promised not to look."—shock and betrayal before Dean's expression had gone carefully blank.

Sam hadn't hesitated over the lie, had stated it as if it were fact. Even though it wasn't. They'd never made that promise; they'd always looked for each other. Always. And it had never been the looking that had been the problem. It had been the deals cut, the compromises made in a couple of desperate situations that had had come back to bite them in the ass.

But when Dean had disappeared in the Dick Roman explosion, Sam had been…lost, destroyed. When Crowley had said that Dick was dead and that Sam was well and truly on his own, the only conclusion Sam had been able to come to was that Dean was dead, too. And it hadn't even occurred to him to look for his brother.

All Sam had known was that Dean was gone, and he was alone. Looking back, Sam wondered if he'd actually had a mental breakdown, because there were weeks he remembered only as a blur of scenery moving past the windows of the Impala and a sense of grief and hopelessness that consumed everything else. Kevin in the hands of Crowley? What was left of the Leviathans roaming the earth? Neither had registered. The only thing Sam had known was that Dean was dead, and the only thing he'd been able to do was drive.

Until he'd hit the dog.

And forced to stop, Sam had. Completely.

He'd told Dean he'd read the papers, that he'd known what was going on, but that he'd chosen to do nothing. Like that had somehow been justified—there were other hunters out there, true. But Sam hadn't even checked to make sure hunts were being covered, hadn't told anyone about Kevin.

"Saving people, hunting things"? No, thank you.

Some shadowy version of "normal"? Broken girlfriend? Yes, please.

And once again, Sam was left wondering what had been wrong with him. Because seriously? What the hell?

But when confronted with a brother who was alive and whole (mostly), clearly there for the finding (possibly), while Sam had played house with Amelia and determinedly closed his eyes to the fact that Kevin was in danger, Sam had been unable to face himself. So he'd clung to the lies he'd told himself in the year Dean had been gone and parroted them back to his brother as if by the sheer repetition and fierceness of his assertions he could make them true.

And that had gone over with Dean about the way Sam should have expected. Though there had been subtle differences in Dean's anger and hurt – at first. Dean's usual lock-down, deny-your-emotions-and-keep-on-going-like-nothing- is-wrong manner of dealing with things had been slightly off.

So Sam hadn't been prepared for Dean to walk away from him – even if it had been for a short period of time – to help the vampire friend he'd made in Purgatory. He hadn't known what to do with Dean leaving, again, after he'd only just been "found." Couldn't process, "Last I counted, you took a year off from the job. I need a day," before Dean had gotten in the car and driven away.

Dean didn't do that; he didn't leave. And desperate in a way he didn't fully understand, Sam had flipped out – jealous and suspicious and so angry, he hadn't been able to rein in the torrent of rage he unleashed on his brother after the case in Missouri.

_Benny has been more of a brother to me this past year than you've __ever__ been! That's right. Cas let me down. You let me down. The only person that hasn't let me down is Benny._

But those words – the underlying truth of them – had not penetrated the walls Sam had constructed around himself. Unwilling, in the face of Dean's anger and devastation and Sam's own denial, to confront his behavior, Sam had let Dean's rage ricochet in response, blasting back, threatening to leave Dean himself and kill Benny if Dean didn't fall into line. Which… Sam couldn't even, right now.

And Dean had caved. There didn't seem to be any other word for it. Dean had just… stopped, and it had been back to business as usual – Dean pretending that everything was fine, and Sam feeling a degree of control that he hadn't since Dean had returned. Because it was that illusion of control that Sam had grabbed onto with such a death grip in the wake of Dean's (in Sam's mind) and Bobby's deaths. With Amelia, Sam had said "no" to hunting and "yes" to normal with a single-mindedness he hadn't had even in college. The loss of Dean and Bobby had obliterated the only real good in hunting for Sam. And he hadn't been going back.

Dean's return had changed that – obviously. But Sam had been determined, initially, to stay in control. He was helping Dean on his own terms, holding out—vociferously—for normal when this job was done. Sam would be the one who directed the story, and Dean would, as he typically did (with a certain amount of huffing and puffing), follow suit. Dean's refusal to play his usual role in their relationship had thrown Sam. And he'd come out swinging, using everything in his arsenal to bring Dean down.

So Dean's capitulation should have been a victory for Sam; it should have been enough that they were back to the status quo. But it wasn't – because as much as Sam _wanted_ to believe he'd been in the right, he knew he hadn't been. The further he got from his time with Amelia, the more he was around his brother, the clearer Sam could see. And what he saw troubled him. Deeply. But he couldn't figure out a way to make things right without stirring everything up again. So he left it alone.

Sam sighed as he peered out the windshield at the Beacon Hills Animal Clinic. He'd offered to drop Dean at the sheriff's office, but his brother had refused, saying it was close enough to walk. Something Dean rarely did – he always preferred the car. At least he had before. Now, evidently, time away from Sam was a bigger draw than the Impala.

Sam shook himself. He needed to get over this. They both did. Doing the job they did with someone you didn't fully trust was the best way to get yourself – and your partner – killed. And the reality Sam didn't want to look at too closely was the fact that his brother didn't trust him. Or maybe that was the wrong word – or the wrong context. Because Sam thought Dean probably did trust him professionally; he just didn't trust him personally. Which, no. Sam shook himself again. _We just need to get used to each other again_, Sam told himself. Figure out the stupid tablets, close the gates of Hell, and get on with their lives. Then things would be good again.

_Yeah_, Sam thought dryly, honest with himself in the moment. _That's the ticket._

When Sam entered the office, there was no one at the front desk, which sat behind a sturdy wooden railing. He looked aimlessly around the room trying to decide if he should give the person who should probably be there a chance to return before calling out. There were the typical posters of animals on the walls and ads for different products, but some prints, too, of plants. Sam moved closer to one, trying to make out what it was.

"May I help you?" A bald African-American man appeared at the door behind the gate. He gave Sam a quizzical look.

"Dr. Deaton?"

"Yes." The vet's eyebrow went up slightly.

"I'm Sam Jones." He held out his hand, and Dr. Deaton shook it as he approached, though he stayed on the other side of the wooden railing. "I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about the animal deaths that occurred here a few days ago. I'm looking into other strange animal behaviors around town and was hoping you could provide me with some insight."

The doctor's expression, which had been only blandly curious, was suddenly much more closed off. "'Looking into'?" he asked cautiously.

_Yahtzee_, Sam thought with satisfaction. Now the question was how to proceed. Animal rights goob (as Dean had put it) at an online magazine or investigator of the weird at same. There was something about the man – an air, a vibe, _something_ – that made Sam think that animal rights would get him nothing but the official story, whatever that might be, but that a suggestion that he might actually know about what goes bump in the night _might_ yield some concessions. Maybe.

"I write for an online magazine that investigates strange," Sam hesitated, like he was considering his words carefully, "… phenomena, I guess." Sam hoped his pause and the use of "phenomena" would be enough to imply "supernatural" in front of it.

The doctor's eyebrow went up a little farther this time into what would have been his hairline. If he'd had one.

"Phenomena," Deaton repeated without inflection.

"You know, events that might not be explained easily by scientific methods," he said raising his own eyebrow.

The doctor watched Sam impassively for a moment. There was no thawing in his expression, but he finally said, "Come back to my office." He didn't make a move to open the closed gate in the railing, so Sam opened it himself, stepping into the restricted area.

"This way," the doctor said, turning toward the door.

Sam followed, but stopped before stepping across the threshold, attention caught by a small print on the back wall. "Is that aconitum?" Sam asked, looking at the vet as the man turned. It was a penciled sketch of the plant that was sometimes called monkshood or wolf's bane. _Interesting_.

"It is," the man acknowledged, walking on. "It was used medicinally last century."

Sam nodded as he trailed the vet. "I've read about its use in folklore, as well." An offering.

"Mmmm," was the only response Sam got. "Here's my office. Have a seat."

What followed was an awkward conversation full of strange silences and dead ends that netted Sam absolutely nothing—beyond the sneaking suspicion that all he'd managed to do was expose himself as someone the doctor was determined _not_ to tell anything.

xxxx

"The vet knows something," Sam said, pulling out the burgers he'd picked up for lunch. He dropped one at the place Dean would be sitting and put the second in front of his own chair.

"Well, the sheriff is clueless." Dean took a soda out of the other bag, took a sip, grimaced and handed it to his brother. The second one he set next to his burger and fries. "Did you get anything from him?"

Sam shook his head. "No," he said in frustration, taking a swallow of his drink. "I might later, but for now he's not talking. And he was definitely trying to figure out what I knew. It's _possible_ that if he knew why we're actually here, he might open up." He shook his head again. "But I don't know," he admitted.

Dean bit into his burger and chewed thoughtfully. "You mean if he knew we were hunters? You think he knows that much?"

"I don't know," Sam repeated. He took a fry from Dean's pile.

"You think he might be protecting someone?" Dean moved his fries away from his brother.

Sam shrugged. It had crossed his mind, but that wasn't exactly the feeling he got. "Maybe? It didn't seem like that, though. He was, too… dispassionate, I guess."

Dean nodded, turning his attention to his lunch.

"Did the sheriff give you any names?" Sam debated risking a hand by trying to take more of Dean's fries

Dean swallowed. "Yeah. The vet was one, some pet owners, and the two girls whose car got totaled by the suicidal deer." He took out the small notebook he used for interviews, and Sam reached for the fries while Dean was distracted. Yelped at the stinging smack on the back of his hand as he withdrew with a fair number. Dean continued as if nothing had happened. "I talked to a couple of people who had pets that had gone berserk, but the girls were in school. I don't know if it's worth trying to catch them. The pet owners were useless. I thought I might go check out where the deer hit the car. See if I can back track it."

Sam put three stolen fries in his mouth. "I could talk to the girls," he offered. "You never know."

"Yeah," Dean agreed. "Just keep it professional, man," he cautioned. Grinned at Sam's confused stare. "Jail bait," he said before heading to the bathroom.

"You know," Sam said thoughtfully to his brother's retreating back, "that's never been very funny. But now that we're in our thirties, it's really just kinda creepy."

There was what Sam would classify as a startled pause of activity in the bathroom before the door shut decisively.

Sam smiled in satisfaction and snagged the rest of his brother's fries.

xxxx


	2. Chapter 2

_Laoich_

_It seems unlikely that later chapters will be posted this quickly, but since this one was done…_

xxxx

Ch. 2

xxxx

It was late afternoon by the time Dean found the spot on the highway where the deer and the car had collided – skid marks and the remnants of a shattered windshield confirming the description the sheriff's notes had provided. The girls had said the deer had come straight at them down the road, so Dean parked the car and began to walk slowly back along the way the animal must have come. He took his time, scanning the shoulder along both sides of the narrow strip of asphalt.

The place where the deer had broken through the brush and onto the road was obvious if you were looking for it. The grass was trampled, deep gouges in the earth where the hooves had scrambled for purchase, branches sheared off or hanging haphazardly where the frantic flight of the animal had left the woods.

Dean's eyes moved carefully along the ground as he began to track the deer's path. It had been years since he and Sam had trailed along behind Bobby, learning how to read animal signs as they'd hunted with the man. Dean felt a pang in his chest remembering just last year (or the year before now, he guessed) hunting again with Bobby as they'd searched for that missing ranger in New Jersey. The pain was more than missing Bobby, Dean knew, though that pain was sharp and still raw. It was also remembering Sam at his back as they'd walked along, reminiscing about those times from their childhood with the man in front of them, the easiness of their relationship after Sam had gotten his soul back.

Dean sighed, taking a deep breath against the ache under his sternum. Things with Sam were wrong now. Hard in ways they hadn't ever been, even after Sam had left for Stanford. Dean was trying to move past it, to accept what had happened while he was in Purgatory, to forgive Sam's reaction to Benny, to remember that Sam came first. His brother always had. But the bitterness and hurt were not fading. They festered; and ignoring those emotions, denying them was getting harder and harder.

Dean shook himself, pushing the grief and anger down again. He and Sam were fine—or at least semi-functional—for the moment. That was going to have to be enough.

Tracking was always hard-going, and it had been awhile since Dean had put into practice what he and Sam had learned from Bobby so many years ago. Fortunately, at least initially, the deer's path through the underbrush wasn't all that difficult to follow, though there had been a couple of places where he'd had to stop and look carefully, where the trail had taken him over rocky ground or through a creek bed. And it had been a few days since the deer had come this way—weather and other animals had obscured tracks as well.

The end of Dean's trail—though the start of the deer's—was so abrupt Dean almost missed it. The deeper scores of the hooves that marked the animal's desperate run were suddenly gone forcing Dean to stop his measured pace through the woods and go back. But ultimately he found the place easily enough, churned leaves and earth where the deer had been startled into flight. Dean crouched down, touching the prints carefully as he gazed around the area, spotting the less obvious marks where the deer had been grazing before being spooked into its head-long dash.

He stood and glanced up, realizing that the dim light wasn't just because of the trees looming over him, but because it was almost dusk. He had a little more time before he'd need to call it quits.

Working methodically, Dean started at the edges of the deer prints where the animal had been moving aimlessly while it ate. He walked in slowly expanding circles, eyes on the ground, looking for… There.

There were multiple shoe prints—boots, sneakers—indicating a group of people; and they had been moving as a unit, Dean could tell. Which was odd. He followed carefully back along the path the group had come. It didn't look like they were moving in formation exactly, but there was a pattern to the prints. They didn't mix together, but whoever each of the prints belonged to seemed to maintain his position within the group as it moved.

Dean continued tracking, spotting more tracks and then a bare human foot, but with claw marks extending several inches past the toes. Dean's eyebrows went up. He turned, studying the ground he'd come over. The bare prints weren't exactly human shaped, he saw that now. Instead, they were slightly elongated, with pads that made them look animalistic as opposed to strictly human. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he could see the odd tracks more clearly among the others. They were lighter than the shoe prints – a woman or possibly a small man or boy. And they were definitely creepy.

"Yikes," he breathed to himself, trying to put the pieces together. Was it possible? A pack?

Werewolves? The clawed foot seemed to point that way. But what about the shod feet? Was a werewolf running with humans? Did the booted prints belong to werewolves, too? He was going to need to go back along the deer's path and see what he could see with these prints.

It was dark enough now, though, that tracking was getting more difficult and, frankly, the idea of being out in the woods at night without back-up (Benny) wasn't all that appealing given this new information. He thought wryly that he might actually have been pretty stoked about the situation a few years ago. He remembered his reaction to the hunt that had led to the Madison debacle. But as Sam had pointed out so kindly earlier, he was in his thirties. Life (Purgatory) and time had made him more cautious than he'd ever thought he'd be.

Dean looked back the way he'd come. He'd been careful to leave marks for himself to get back to the road along the way, so he made a final mark on a tree. He'd come back tomorrow with Sam, see where the potentially-werewolf tracks ended up.

The deer's trail had not been a straight line in spite of the animal's terrified speed, changing directions suddenly as some new fear or obstacle forced the deer in a different direction. Dean realized that he could get to the car more quickly if he didn't actually follow the same path he'd come on, so he set off along the trajectory that would get him back to the road more efficiently.

xxxx

By Dean's estimation the Impala should be waiting for him in about a quarter mile over the next incline or maybe two. But when Dean came over the hill, he was startled by two figures crouched just a few feet away from him; he yanked his gun out of his waistband, bringing it up sharply. "Hey."

The figure closer to him turned quickly, and Dean recognized the kid he'd seen in the sheriff's office earlier. Brown eyes widened in the boy's pale face, and he yelped in surprise, shifting to the side and revealing another boy about the same age.

When the other boy saw Dean, he snarled – literally – and with a quick, pained motion tried to angle himself in front of his friend, who scrambled behind him. The snarling boy's incisors lengthened as his eyes turned golden, ears extending and hair beginning to sprout on his cheeks and jaw.

Dean's gun, which had started to lower with the realization that it was just a couple of kids, came up again. "Whoa!" he barked, caught off guard and stepping back into a shooting stance.

"No!" The human boy was now struggling to move forward, trying to scramble back around the … werewolf. _Perfect_. "He's hurt; he won't…"

But the wounded werewolf was doing his best not to let his friend get past him, despite his injuries. And Dean could see, even in the dim light, that they were extensive.

"Scott, Scott, it's OK." The human boy had managed to worm his way around his friend and was doing what he could to restrain the other boy. He seemed to take the fact that Dean hadn't shot his friend as encouragement. "He's not going to hurt me." He looked at Dean. "Right?"

Dean eased back another step, though he kept his gun at the ready. "I don't want to hurt you," Dean acknowledged. Interesting that the boy's concern was his friend's protectiveness of him.

"And you won't hurt Scott." The kid said it as a statement, protective in turn, but there was a question there, too. Rightly so.

"I don't know about that," Dean admitted. He gave the other kid—_Scott_—a wary look. The kid looked back at him balefully. But Dean could see pain and fear on the boy's face, even under its light covering of hair.

"He won't hurt you. We thought you might be them. We thought…." The human boy broke off, voice shaking.

"What happened?" Dean asked. "Who are 'they'?" He let his gun lower slightly, looking over his shoulder for anyone else who might be coming.

"Hunters, I think. They're the ones who hurt Scott. But they didn't…didn't follow us." The boy frowned, looking at his friend and then back at Dean. "I don't know why they would let us go…." He trailed off.

"Hunters?" Dean's eyes narrowed, slanting to Scott consideringly. What kind of hunter was the kid talking about exactly?

The human boy was eyeing him warily. "You were at my dad's office. He said you were with Animal Affairs or something like that?"

"Your dad's the sheriff?"

The boy nodded.

"Is he aware of your friend's… condition?" Dean asked.

The boys exchanged glances, and the werewolf's face changed, easing back into human. He looked startlingly young. And hurt. Cursing under his breath, Dean tucked his gun into the waistband of his jeans and approached the kids.

Both boys reared back slightly as he neared, but Scott didn't shift even when Dean crouched in front of him.

Neither boy responded to Dean's question about what the sheriff knew, and Dean decided, given the circumstances, not to push them on it.

"What's your name?" he asked the human-boy. He looked at the werewolf-boy. "Can you lie down?"

"Stiles," said the sheriff's son, looking at Dean quickly as he helped his friend uncurl and lie down.

"From Stilinski?" Dean had turned his attention to the wounded werewolf. _Damn_. He wasn't sure how he'd gone from tracking werewolves to patching one up, even if it was just a kid.

"Yeah," the boy acknowledged.

"I'm counting six arrows here, Scott," Dean said. "Am I missing any?"

"No," the boy whispered. "I can't heal while they're in me. Can you… Can you pull them out?" He looked from Dean to Stiles and back.

Stiles looked anxiously at Dean, too, face sickly pale. "I was going to try, but I couldn't… I wasn't sure….."

Dean sighed. "Look. Three of these – the ones in the arm and in your calf – have gone all the way through. I can cut off the ends and pull them through pretty easily. It will hurt like hell," Dean assumed it would anyway, given how little he knew about werewolves, "but they'll be out. These others though. They're imbedded. And if they have heads like the others, trying to pull them out is going to do a lot of additional damage. I don't know enough about werewolf physiology to know exactly what that might mean healing-wise. I think it would be better if someone removed them surgically. You got someone who could help with that?"

The boys exchanged looks again. "Yeah," breathed the wounded kid; he kept trying to curl back in on himself reflexively in response to the pain, even with the arrows in his torso. He groaned and straightened back out. "My boss."

Dean shook his head, not understanding.

"Dr. Deaton," Stiles said. "He's a vet."

_Ah,_ Dean thought, understanding_._ "That's handy," Dean said dryly. Looked like the man had been protecting someone when he'd talked to Sam. "Let's get done what we can, OK?" He pulled his knife out of his boot. Paused. "You said you thought hunters did this? And they didn't follow you?" Dean hadn't seen sign of anyone else while he'd been walking (though he hadn't been looking), and it seemed like he'd been unintentionally taking the same path the kids had been running. He grasped one of the arrows. "Hold him," he said to Stiles.

Stiles shifted so that he could hold Scott's shoulders down, face ashen, but determined.

"Yeah. I think," Stiles said. "I mean, I'm assuming. We didn't actually see them. We were… looking for something and suddenly the arrows started hitting Scott." He flinched with each sound of pain his friend made as Dean made quick work of the fletched-ends of each arrow he could reach. "Scott was down, and they didn't come. Even when I finally got him up, we weren't moving very fast. And no one caught us." He bit his lip. "Who else would be after him?"

"It's not like alphas use arrows," Scott coughed weakly, surprising Dean. He was talking to his friend, not Dean.

"Alphas?" Dean asked sharply. Some of the reading he'd done as a kid at the insistence of his father or Bobby had been about werewolves, and he knew they sometimes ran in packs with an alpha werewolf as a leader. "Like werewolf alphas? More than one?"

Scott didn't answer, moaning through the pain.

"Stiles?" Dean prodded.

"A- a pack of them," Stiles said hesitantly, eyes fixed on his friend.

"A pack of alphas?" Dean hadn't ever read about such a pack. "How does that work?" And did the kid think the alphas would be after him? "Roll him toward me."

"We don't really know," Stiles said, gently, but determinedly pushing Scott over so that the boy was resting with his chest against Dean's knees. "But there's one that's in charge, I guess, even though they're all alphas."

Dean grunted, leaning over to cut the heads off the two arrows that protruded from Scott's left arm and the one from his calf.

"Roll him back over." Dean tilted the boy back toward his friend, and Stiles lowered Scott the rest of the way down.

"Scott?" Stiles prodded, but the kid didn't respond beyond a low whimper. Stiles looked at Dean again. "This isn't right," he said worriedly. "He's been hurt bad before, but he's never been this out of it."

"Maybe it's because he can't heal himself?" Dean took advantage of Scott's lack of awareness. "Hold him," he ordered again as he grabbed the shaft in Scott's arm that was closest to hand. Stiles did and Dean yanked hard, pulling out the shaft as Scott screamed. Without pausing Dean did the same with the other arrow in that arm.

There was a second scream and then nothing but a sob when Dean took care of the bolt in the kid's leg. He put a finger against Scott's neck, checking his pulse. It was faster than it probably should be, but that was to be expected. Scott didn't respond to the touch or to Stiles's voice when the boy asked unsteadily if he was OK.

Stiles was shaking visibly when he sat back up from holding his friend down. He ran a trembling hand over his head. "I need to call Derek."

"Who's Derek?" Dean was looking around for something to put over the bleeding holes in the kid in front of him. "Give me your shirt," he ordered as he pulled off first his jacket and then his own flannel and began to fold it up to serve as a pressure bandage.

The kid blinked, but obeyed, shrugging out of his over shirt. "Derek's…." he hesitated. Frowned. "You… you seem awfully _not_ disturbed by all this." Like it had only just occurred to him. And, Dean realized, it probably just had.

"Yeah," Dean agreed, pushing down on the oozing wound in Scott's arm. "Put pressure on his leg."

Stiles wadded up his flannel and covered the wound. His eyes when they came back to Dean were cautious and a little scared. "Are you… are you a hunter? Like a werewolf hunter?"

Dean's eyebrows went up. He studied the kid for a minute, then nodded. "Yeah. I am."

Stiles's face stilled, hands tightening convulsively on the shirt he had pressed to Scott's calf. It was an oddly protective gesture. "Wh- why are you helping us?" he whispered.

"I don't know," Dean admitted. "You're just… you're just kids. _He's _just a kid. And he's hurt and…." Dean shook his head. "I don't know."

Stiles didn't say anything for a long beat. Then, "Derek's… Derek can help. He needs to know Scott's hurt, that something seems different." Scott's low moan made Stiles shudder, ashen in the light of the almost full moon.

"Derek's a werewolf," Dean realized.

The look on the boy's face confirmed Dean's conclusion.

"He's Scott's alpha?" It made sense – a teenaged werewolf would be part of a pack; surely not on his own with only a human boy for companionship and protection.

"Kind of," Stiles said.

"'Kind of'?" Dean repeated, surprised.

"It's complicated," the boy admitted.

Dean looked down at Scott. "Complicated" among creatures with a pack mentality was unusual – unheard of really.

"OK," Dean said slowly. "Call Derek." He didn't like the idea of adding _another_ werewolf into the mix, but if Stiles seemed OK with this guy, then maybe Dean would trust the kid's judgment on it. For the moment. "Tell him he can meet us at Deaton's."

Stiles nodded quickly and stuck his hand in his pocket for his phone. He closed his eyes. "I don't have my phone."

Dean pulled his own out of a pocket. "Use mine."

Stiles took it even as he was shaking his head. "His number was in my phone. I don't have it _memorized_," he duhed.

"Well, who else has it?" Dean said impatiently. "Does Scott?" he patted the unconscious boy down, but came up empty.

"I can call Scott's mom," he said. "I think she has it." He squinted at the key pad and began to punch in the numbers – evidently he did have that number memorized. "She knows about Scott," Stiles added as he put the phone to his ear. After a couple of rings, Dean heard a female voice on the other end.

"Hi, Mrs. McCall, it's Stiles!" The kid was going for "breezy," Dean thought, but was actually hitting "manic." "Yeah, we're fine, we're fine. I'm fine. Scott's fine. We're both fine."

Dean raised an eyebrow at the kid, who switched gears abruptly in response. "So, you don't happen to have Derek's number, do you? We need to ask him something – nothing important or anything, you know, just a random question…"

The voice on the other end of the call broke in.

"No! Nothing's wrong! I just… I don't have my phone so I'm borrow-…." Another break in from Scott's mother. "Scott's fine! He just left his…." More talk from the other side of the call, increasingly frantic.

Dean snatched the phone out of the kid's hand. This wasn't accomplishing anything except worrying Scott's mother. Stiles squawked, hands fumbling after the cell, but Dean was too quick.

"Mrs. McCall? My name's Dean, and I'm with Stiles and your son right now. Scott's hurt, but my understanding is that if I can get him to his boss's office, Dr. Deaton can help." Dean spoke quickly and authoritatively, trying to forestall interruptions. "Stiles, though, thinks Derek needs to know what happened. Neither of the boys have their phones with them. Can you give me this Derek's number?"

"Scott is hurt? What…" The woman stopped herself, took a deep breath. In his mind Dean could imagine Lisa in the same situation, desperate to know what had happened, but willing to put that aside to make sure Ben got help as quickly as possible. "I'll meet you at Dr. Deaton's. Give me a second while I find Derek's number." There was a brief silence. "Here it is." She rattled off the numbers quickly. "Do you have it?"

"Yeah. We'll see you there." He hung up and punched the number into his phone before handing it to Stiles. "You call. I'll get Scott."

This was going to hurt the boy, Dean knew, but it had to be done. He draped his jacket over Scott, worked one arm under the kid's shoulders and hooked the other under his knees. After too much experience over the years moving his enormous brother when Sam was injured, picking up the teenager was surprisingly easy. He was a solid kid, for sure, but still just a kid.

Scott groaned when Dean lifted him, limbs moving weakly as Dean got him settled in a comfortable hold and jerked his head at Stiles to follow.

"Come on, Derek. Pick up, pick up, pick up." Stiles was muttering into the phone to no one as he stumbled after Dean. Evidently there was no answer because Stiles cursed and redialed. The process was repeated several times with Stiles getting increasingly frustrated, then, "Derek!" Even several feet in the lead, Dean could hear the deep, angry(?) tones of the werewolf Stiles was talking to.

"I know it's not my phone!" Stiles shouted it. "Stop yelling at me for just a second so I can tell you, you big stupid ..." The kid managed to get himself under control. "Scott's hurt…. Hunters, I think. … I don't know! They didn't keep after us and, dude, Scott is seriously hurt." The anger and frustration drained out of Stiles's voice, leaving it broken and pleading – looking to the man (werewolf) on the other end of the call for reassurance. "He's not healing, even with the places where the arrows are out, I think. He's… he's moaning like it hurts really, really bad. Like," the boys trailed off. "Like with an alpha wound." Dean heard the realization in the boy's voice. "Would an arrow shot by an alpha not heal? Why would they even _use_ arrows? I don't…." He stopped talking and was listening, keeping pace with Dean.

"We're…" Dean saw Stiles look around vaguely. "I guess… I don't know exactly where we are, but we're on our way to Dr. Deaton's. Can you… can you meet us there?"

Stiles didn't say anything for a moment while Derek spoke, then said, "We…" he looked at Dean, who had glanced back at him. "There's someone helping us. He's a hunter." There was another beat of silence from Stiles. "No, like a _hunter_, you know?" Stiles huffed out an impatient breath. "A _werewolf_ hunter," he said. "_Geez_, Derek, what…?" There was shouting again from Derek while Stiles rolled his eyes. "Yes, he knows. Scott wolfed out on him when we thought he might be one of the people who hurt him." Stiles gave Dean a careful look. "I dunno. He said cuz Scott's just a kid." There was the flash of a sly smile on the boy's face. "I'm not sure how he'll react to you, of course…" He mouthed, _I'm just kidding him_, at Dean, before his face creased with realization. and he gave Dean a startled glance – _you're not going to kill Derek, are you? _he asked.

Dean gave a non-committal shrug.

The look Stiles was giving Dean now was uneasy.

"If he behaves, I won't," Dean said tightly to relieve the boy's fear. "Other than that…."

"I think maybe we can call Dr. Deaton's neutral ground," Stiles said to Derek, though he was asking Dean, too.

Dean shrugged again. "Fine. For now."

Stiles nodded, turning his attention back to Derek. "Can you call him and tell him we're headed that way? Because I don't have my phone! Why can't you just…" Stile broke off with a huff. "Fine. We'll see you there," he said into the phone and hung up. He waggled the phone at Dean. "Where do you want…?" 

"Front pocket," Dean said shortly.

Stiles poked the phone gingerly into the pocket of Dean's jeans.

"How much farther?"

"Not much." The Impala should be just over the next hill.

They walked on in silence. Though not for long.

"How did you find us?"

Dean hadn't planned on answering; he didn't have the breath to chat – Scott might not have Sam's weight or length, but carrying a deadweight for any length of time was tiring. Dean adjusted the load in his arms, and Scott moaned. When he heard the answering stutter of Stiles's breath, Dean gave in and responded, hoping to distract the boy.

"Just stumbled across you, honestly" he said. "I'd been out here since a little before dusk, looking for signs of whatever might have startled a deer into kamikaze-ing a car. I'd been tracking something that looked promising, and it got dark before I'd realized it. I'd marked it and was heading back to the car when I found you." He glanced at the boy beside him.

Stiles was nodding. "Was it the alphas?"

Dean shrugged. "Maybe. I'd wondered about werewolves, but I didn't know about the alphas." Dean's plan had been to call Sam when he'd gotten back to the car, but now he wasn't sure. Especially given the werewolf pup he was currently carrying. Hiding anything from Sam wasn't the best option given the state of their relationship at the moment, but considering how Sam had reacted to Benny, Dean wasn't keen on risking Sam's going Hulk all over the ass of a teenager until Dean had a better handle on the situation.

Of course, Sam had had a different reaction to the werewolf-girl they'd found out about earlier in the year. So maybe as long as they weren't dealing with a vampire-friend of Dean's Sam would be fine with it. Dean sighed. He'd call after he talked to the vet.

He was actually kind of surprised Sam hadn't called already given how late it was. But then. Maybe he wasn't. Dean sighed again.

"My dad doesn't know." Stiles offered it into the quiet. Dean looked at him. "You asked earlier if he knew. He doesn't."

"OK." Dean took a couple more steps. "How?"

"What?"

"How doesn't he know? You're his son; your best friend is a werewolf; he's the sheriff." He looked at the boy beside him. "How does he not know?" But even as he asked the question, Dean knew.

"He's not dumb," Stiles said defensively.

"I never said he was," Dean answered. "And never mind – I know how he doesn't know." He turned and looked at the boy who had dropped behind him slightly. "'Werewolves' isn't the first conclusion law enforcement come to when strange things start happening. I'm assuming strange things happen when your friends are around," he said with a raised eyebrow at the boy, who snorted in confirmation. "And you haven't told him," he added, "even though you know."

"I don't know why I haven't told him," Stiles said quietly.

The walked in silence.

"You want to protect him," Dean finally said, understanding. It was clear to Dean that this kid knew there was danger in knowing the truth, bloodied body of the kid in Dean's arms aside. "I get that."

Stiles blinked at him. "You do?"

"Yeah. Me and my dad did everything we could to protect my little brother from the truth when he was a kid."

"Is your dad a hunter, too?"

"He was. He died a few years ago."

"Does your brother know now?"

"Yeah." Dean sighed. "We couldn't protect him forever, especially given what we did."

"Is he a hunter, too?"

"Yeah," Dean said again. "For now, anyway." He tried not to let the bitterness of that acknowledgement bleed through. "There's the car." And, thank God. His back was killing him.

xxxx


	3. Chapter 3

_Laoich_

_Ch. 3_

xxxx

When they pulled up to the vet's office, Stiles was out of the Impala before Dean got her to a full stop, reaching for the back door of the car.

Dean rolled his eyes as he got out of his own door. "What are you going to do? Carry him in?" he asked impatiently, reaching into the car himself and starting to slide Scott's inert form from the backseat on his side. "Go get the office door."

Stiles jerked his hand away from the door handle and stumbled over his feet when he reversed direction; he caught himself before he fell, racing for the building.

Dean strode behind the boy, accidentally jostling the kid in his arms slightly; Scott moaned, twisting weakly.

"What did you do to him?" The growl and the sudden appearance of a man in front of him took Dean by surprise. And the realization that the guy actually had his hands on Scott and was going to try to wrestle the kid out of Dean's grasp pissed him off. He turned himself sharply with a growl of his own, foot lashing out at the jackass's knee while he was at it.

The kick didn't connect, the man moving nimbly to the side, eyes flashing red, arms spreading wide, and claws extending. "What did you do?" the werewolf snarled again.

"Back off!" Dean snapped, heart-rate spiking. He held his ground, desperately wishing he could drop the load in his arms to reach for his gun.

"Guys!" Stiles jumped between the two of them. "Stop!" He put a hand out to the werewolf – part command, part plea. "Derek. Cut it out. He's _helping _us."

The door behind Derek flew open.

"Derek." The African-American man in the entry assessed the situation quickly, eyes narrowing slightly when he saw who was carrying Scott. "Let Dean by."

Dean's eyebrows went up at that, but he didn't take his attention off the werewolf in front of him.

Derek bared his teeth, displaying elongated incisors before stepping aside, transforming back into a fully-human form. "Fine."

"This way," the vet ordered.

Carefully, Dean sidestepped the glowering werewolf, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as he passed, the creature's eyes boring into his skull.

"Where do you want him?" he asked the vet.

"Follow me."

When they entered the surgery area of the office, there was a pretty, dark-haired woman already there, laying out instruments across the surface of a small rolling table. She jerked around as they came through the door.

"Scott! Oh my God," she cried, rushing toward Dean. The mother, he presumed.

"Put him on the table," the doctor ordered, and the woman moved deftly out of the way, never losing contact with her son, one hand on his arm. "Oh, sweetheart," she breathed. Her hand slipped under Scott's head as Dean transferred him to the flat surface, easing it on to the paper that covered the table. As Dean stepped back, the woman slid between him and her son.

"It's OK, sweetie," she murmured. "I'm here. We're going to get you better."

Scott's head turned toward his mother as she soothed him, and his eyes opened slightly. "Mo - ?"

Dean had eased out of the way, shifting toward the head of the table, and he saw the woman's face light up when Scott spoke.

"Hey, hey," she said, smoothing his hair back.

"Hurts," Scott whispered.

"I know, honey," she said, voice breaking. "But Dr. Deaton and I are going to get you fixed up OK?"

Scott's pain-glazed eyes wandered away from and then back to his mom. He blinked at her sluggishly a couple of times. "'K," he agreed.

"There's my boy." She kissed his forehead. "Alan," she said, raising her eyes to the vet.

Without saying anything, the man slid a needle into the vein at the crook of Scott's arm. On a shaky sigh, Scott's body relaxed, pain receding some with the drugs.

"Tell me what happened," the doctor clipped.

Stiles stumbled through an explanation, giving Dean the background he'd been missing in terms of why the boys were in the woods to begin with – tracking the same deer Dean had been, except by scent, which had been difficult for Scott given the time that had passed. They, too, had been trying to figure out what had startled the deer. When he got to the injuries themselves, the kid faltered, and Dean took things from there.

"I pulled out the shafts that I could," he said. "But the ones in his torso… I wasn't sure. I didn't want to do any more damage, if I could avoid it."

The vet had cut off Scott's shirt and was examining the arrow punctures clinically. Scott's mother was focused on the wounds in the boy's arm and leg, cleaning and bandaging them professionally. Which, Dean realized, she was.

"Thank you," Deacon said. "You can all go." He turned his attention to the woman beside him. "I can remove the bolts," he told her. "Are you OK to assist me, Melissa?"

"Yes," she said, face pale, but determined.

Deaton's eyes met Dean's, and Dean nodded. "Come on," he said to Stiles, who was standing still and silent behind him. "Let's let them work." He put a hand on the boy's shoulder, just to get him turned around and moving toward the door when he almost bumped into the damn werewolf. Who was glowering at him. Still. Some more.

"What?" Dean asked flatly, staring down the younger man in front of him.

The guy's scowl deepened, but he took a step back, turning. Dean shook his head, pushing lightly at Stiles's shoulder to get the boy in motion.

When the door to the surgery closed behind them, the werewolf pivoted, rounding on Stiles.

"What the hell were you two doing out there? I _told_ you…" Derek moved aggressively into the kid's space, and Dean reacted without thought, stepping between the two and shoving Derek back.

"Watch it." Dean glanced back at Stiles, gauging the boy's reaction, but Stiles didn't really have one beyond what looked like weary annoyance.

"Scott wanted to see if he could track the deer." Stiles answered the werewolf without a hint of unease at its behavior. He moved around Dean, dropping into one of the plastic chairs.

"I told him he couldn't," Derek snapped with an annoyed glare at Dean for trying to interfere.

"Well, he wanted to _see_," Stiles repeated tiredly.

"And he didn't find anything?" Derek asked impatiently.

"I said he didn't," Stiles said waspishly. He pointed at Dean. "But he did."

Derek's eyes lasered to Dean. "What did you find?"

Dean looked at Derek without expression.

"Well?" Derek asked challengingly.

Dean still didn't respond, his own hackles up, adrenaline making his shoulders twitch. He could feel the ache in his jaw from where he was clenching his teeth, his whole body thrumming with tension. There was a damn werewolf standing in front of him, and Dean wasn't sure why he hadn't already pulled his gun and emptied the clip into it.

Derek's eyes narrowed, and Dean glared right back at him.

Stiles sighed heavily and put his head in his hands. "C'mon, dude." He raised his head to give Dean an entreating look. "Will you just tell him?"

"No," Dean said tightly. "I won't." He decided to ignore the werewolf, meeting Stiles's eyes. "I've done what I said I'd do. Scott is here." He tipped his head at Derek. "He isn't dead. I'm leaving." He started for the door.

The werewolf moved to block his path, and now Dean did pull his gun. In one smooth motion, he slid it out of the waistband at the back of his jeans, leveling it at the chest of the creature in front of him. "Good thing I loaded up on silver this morning," he drawled. He hadn't. But the wolf didn't know that. He hoped.

"Guys, come on." Stiles looked worriedly between the two men. He'd stood and was bouncing nervously on the balls of his feet. "Derek, Dean _saved_ Scott." Now he moved carefully forward. "He didn't have to do that. He's a _hunter_. He could have killed him."

The werewolf continued to glare at Dean until, to Dean's surprise, the man blinked and took a deep breath. Then he stepped out of the way. His eyes went to Stiles for a long beat, then back to Dean. "Yeah. I – uh." He took another step back. "Thanks," Derek said stiffly.

Dean's eyebrows climbed. That was… sudden.

"It's Scott's blood," Stiles said. "He can smell it."

The werewolf, to Dean's continued astonishment, actually blushed. "Stiles, shut up."

Stiles ignored the man. "It upsets him. And he's emotionally incapable of…."

"STILES!" Derek roared, cutting off whatever Stiles had been going to say.

But not for long. Stiles leaned in toward Dean like he was sharing a secret. "He's kinda repressed."

"I'm going to check on Scott," Derek growled and stalked away. He didn't have far to go, but he made the most of it, stepping back into the surgery. Dean wondered what the vet's reaction would be.

Stiles watched as Derek disappeared, then turned surprisingly somber eyes on Dean. Especially given the teasing he'd just been doing. "He, uh." Stiles cleared his throat. "He lost one of his pack recently. Erica." He paused, swallowing. "He's just worried about Scott is all," he said simply.

And Dean nodded his understanding. His eyes went to the door that let into the surgery thoughtfully.

"Why won't you tell Derek what you saw in the woods?" Stiles wondered, evidently thoughtful himself. "It's not like I won't."

"He's a monster," Dean answered. He sighed. "One I don't know. And since I also don't know what's going on in this town or who's responsible, I'm not sharing information with the possible cause." He cocked an eyebrow at Stiles. "Besides. How do you know what I told you is the truth?"

Stiles stared at him, and Dean smiled as he turned away, reaching for the door. "Scott's mom should have my number in her phone. Let me know how things go with Scott."

"Why should I?" Stiles called after him.

Dean just shrugged and shut the door behind him.

xxxx

"Where have you been?" Sam was sitting on one of the beds, back against the headboard, legs stretched out. He had the computer on his lap, and he was holding a half-eaten apple. Organic, Dean was sure.

Dean took the phone out of his pocket and tossed it on his bed.

Sam sat up suddenly. "Are you bleeding?"

Dean spread his arms slightly, glancing down at his torso. His t-shirt was smeared red and rusty. "It's not mine," he said, snagging his duffle and dropping it on the bed began to dig through it. He found clean clothes and headed for the bathroom.

"Dean." Sam's voice was impatient.

"I'll tell you when I'm clean," Dean said. _It's an hour after sundown, and you couldn't be bothered to call_, he thought, surprising himself at the anger of his reaction. _You can just wait._

When Dean came back into the room, his duffle had been moved off his bed, and Sam had put a couple of take-out bags in the middle.

"The lady behind the counter at the deli down the street recommended the roast beef," Sam said by way of explanation. He popped the cap off a beer and handed it to his brother.

"Thanks," Dean said, feeling somewhat remorseful for his earlier shortness. They were a negotiating a new phase in their relationship, and Dean kept forgetting that. They were back to pretending that nothing had changed; though everything had.

He opened the bag and pulled out the sandwich. He peered in to see what else was there and found a bag of chips, a pickle, and an enormous chocolate chip cookie. "No pie?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Eat your cookie," Sam said. He waited while Dean got himself settled, then asked, "What happened?"

Dean took a bite of the sandwich and, good Lord, that was _awesome_. He wasn't much of a sandwich man, but he could appreciate a good one. He gestured with half the sandwich at Sam. "You have one of these?"

Sam nodded. "Dean. What happened?"

Dean swallowed his bite and then crunched on his pickle. "The short version is that I ran into a couple of kids who'd gotten in trouble with some hunters, and I ended up taking them in for some help."

He'd debated with himself in the shower about whether or not to tell Sam the whole story. There was a part of him, he had to admit, that had wanted to keep the information to himself for purely spiteful purposes—_You threatened to kill Benny, man, just for being a vampire. How was I supposed to know you wouldn't kill this poor baby-werewolf? It's a monster like Benny, right? You're all about killing the monsters, now, aren't you Sam?_ But as satisfying as that had felt played out in his mind, Dean knew he couldn't keep Sam in the dark about this. It was relevant to the case, and Sam needed to know.

His brother was watching him curiously, and Dean went on. "The longer version is that when I was backtracking that deer, I came across prints that made me think we might be dealing with werewolves."

Sam's eyebrows shot up. "Were_wolves_? Like, more than one?"

"Looks like. I saw where they'd approached the deer that had bolted, but it got too dark to keep following the trail, so I was headed back to the car and almost literally stumbled over these two kids – one of them had been hurt pretty badly; shot by arrows."

Sam winced and whistled, "Damn."

"Yeah. The thing is… this kid." Dean paused. Sam frowned at him. "Turns out, the injured kid's a werewolf."

Sam blinked. "What?"

"The kid's a werewolf. He and his friend – the sheriff's boy, by the way – thought it had been hunters – like our kind of hunters – that had shot him."

Sam's eyebrows were up in his hair. "What did you do?"

"I told you. I took him to get some help."

"_You_?" Sam said it with a level of incredulity that had Dean bristling.

"Yes, Sam. Me." The unfairness of Sam's mockery pissed him off. "I don't know why you're so surprised. I'm not the one threatening to off monsters that haven't hurt anyone these days," he snapped.

Sam's expression froze, the muscle along his jaw tightening enough that Dean could see it jump. They stared at each other for a long moment before Sam's eyes moved away. There was a beat of silence.

Then Sam cleared his throat. "So, do you think this kid is, uh, one of the wolves that spooked the deer?" His eyes came back to Dean's.

Dean took a second to respond. He'd expected Sam to come at him, verbally at least, over that last accusation. Sam wasn't usually the one who went for avoidance, especially if he felt attacked. "No," Dean finally answered. "I don't. The boys said there's an alpha pack in town." He cocked an eyebrow at his brother, with a twitch of his lips. _What do you think about that?_

Sam's eyes sharpened. "An alpha _pack_? Have you ever heard of such a thing?"

"Nope."

"What did the kids say about it? It's a pack of only alphas? How would that even work?"

Dean smiled to himself at the barrage of question, and took the moment to indulge in another bite of his sandwich. He did Sam the favor of actually swallowing before he answered. "I have no idea. The kids didn't seem to either, though I didn't push them too hard about it. We were kinda busy trying to get Scott taken care of."

"Scott?"

"Yeah. Werewolf-boy. Who, by the way, works for our local veterinarian, Dr. Deaton."

"You're kidding me," Sam said, voice slightly disgusted.

"Nope. And the good doctor didn't seem too surprised to have me turn up on his doorstep with a bloody, teenaged werewolf. The kid's _mother_ was even there. And another werewolf – an alpha, not Scott's, but seemingly unconnected to the alpha pack." Dean took a long draw from his beer. "It's werewolf central around here, apparently."

"You met another werewolf?"

"Yep. Big werewolf day for me," he admitted.

"What…?" Sam stopped, shook his head. He tried again, "What…?" but he couldn't seem to put together an actual question.

"Exactly," Dean said, tilting the neck of his beer toward his brother.

xxxx

When the Winchesters arrived at the Beacon Hills Animal Clinic the next day, the doctor didn't seem particularly surprised to see them.

"Come on back," he said pointing at the door leading into the interior of the building as he flipped the sign on the door to "Closed."

"I wasn't completely honest with you yesterday, Sam," Dr. Deaton started.

"Yeah. No kidding." Sam was annoyed, but he couldn't help being a little amused as well.

"I didn't recognize you," he said. "Until I saw Dean last night and put it together."

The Winchesters exchanged confused looks. "Have we met?" Dean asked.

"Not formally," the man answered. "But I saw you several years ago at Bobby Singer's."

Sam felt Dean startle next to him, though he doubted anyone but him would recognize it.

"You were at Bobby's?" Sam asked doubtfully.

"I'd heard Bobby Singer was a good man to be connected with in regard to the supernatural, so I'd stopped by to introduce myself. The two of you were working on a car in the side yard as I drove up."

Dean couldn't seem to help the soft snort he gave. Their "working" on cars at Bobby's had mostly involved Sam sitting around complaining about Dad or reading while Dean played with the engines.

"How'd you know who we were?" Sam asked, pitching his voice over Dean's response.

"I didn't then. But I heard later; it wasn't any secret that your dad left you boys with Singer fairly regularly."

"I don't remember you," Dean said almost accusingly. There hadn't been many people who'd dropped by Bobby's when the two of them had been staying there, so those who had stuck out for Sam and, he knew, for Dean. Sam also knew it continued to annoy Dean how much people seemed to know about the two of them when they'd been mostly in the dark about the larger hunting community until a few years ago. Sam actually shared that annoyance.

"I wasn't there very long," the vet said dryly. "When Singer found out I was the emissary for a wolf pack, he ran me off his property pretty quick."

Dean frowned, but Sam saw the dawning recognition on his brother's face. "That _was_ awhile back," he said. "Like 15 years ago." He glanced at Sam, but Sam was waiting for the prompt—he still wasn't remembering. "It was that summer Dad dropped us with Bobby for almost the whole break. I remember coming in from the yard one afternoon after a car had taken off in a hurry through the gate, and Bobby was slammin' around the house, mad as hell. He _said_ something about emissaries and werewolves," Dean said thoughtfully.

Sam was nodding along. That did seem familiar. "Yeah." Bobby had been out of sorts for the rest of the day. "My memory is he didn't have much use for your kind." He couldn't help the suspicion as he assessed the vet.

"Most hunters don't," Deaton acknowledged. "That doesn't mean we don't have our uses. Or our purpose."

The three men studied each other.

"How's Scott?" Dean finally asked.

The doctor didn't answer.

"Look. If I'd been going to hurt the kid, I would've done it last night. I'm just asking if he's gonna be OK."

The weary, but resigned, expression on Dean's face made Sam think back to Dean's reaction when Sam had acted shocked that he hadn't killed the boy-werewolf. It was like he expected to have the worst thought of him. Not that there had been weariness or resignation last night—just the opposite, in fact. But Sam realized with an uncomfortable start that it was Sam's acting like he expected the worst that had set his brother off.

The truth was, though, that Sam didn't expect the worst. He hadn't for years. Hadn't ever, really. He'd always known his brother's compassion, had seen it lived out (in its Dean-like uniqueness) in his own life more times than Sam could count. But when it came to the things they hunted, Dean had always been ruthless. Or at least he had been.

But Dean wasn't the same person he'd been eight or even five years ago. God knew Sam wasn't. And because things were difficult with Dean right now, Sam knew he tended to revert to relating to his brother as he had when they were younger, pretending that Dean was brash and thoughtless and all "shoot first, ask questions later." In a weird way it felt safer to think of his brother as that annoying, careless (but invincible) guy. Because if Dean was that guy, then Sam could protect himself, could roll his eyes and pretend (as he had when he'd been young) that Dean couldn't be hurt or killed. And if Sam could believe that Dean was incapable of being hurt, then he could believe that he himself would be safe.

When Dean had been later than Sam expected last night, Sam had had to breathe himself through an encroaching panic attack: "The sun only went down an hour ago; he's out in the woods, he doesn't have cell reception; don't over react." Every fiber in his being had wanted to call, to check in, to _make sure_. But he didn't. Because Dean was _fine_. Sam would not let himself get pulled back into the hunting mind-frame of worry and helplessness and _what if Dean's gone_. That was weakness, and Sam was not weak. He would not allow himself to be.

So when Dean had walked through the door perfectly fine, if covered in what turned out to be werewolf blood, Sam had defaulted to the tried and true – surprise that Dean had showed compassion or sensitivity to one of the creatures they hunted. That Dean had gone off script by not acting as shocked as Sam by this turn of events and instead coming straight back at Sam with a not-so-thinly veiled reference to Sam's threats against Benny had knocked the breath out of Sam.

Just one more indication that he and Dean were not OK, despite their best efforts to pretend the contrary.

Sam sighed, shaking his head slightly when Dean looked at him questioningly.

The vet finally decided to answer Dean's inquiry about the werewolf kid. "Scott will be fine."

"Was it the alphas?" Dean asked.

The vet didn't respond. Again. "What really brings you two to Beacon Hills?"

Sam snorted lightly at the evasion. He looked at Dean, who shrugged. Sam answered, "Same thing I told you yesterday – weird animal activity. But with the added component of three dead teenagers in the last few weeks. And a history of death by animal attack in the area." Sam raised his eyebrow challengingly at the doctor. He'd spent time reading the local news online yesterday afternoon after he'd talked to the girls the deer had hit. Three kids had gone missing, then been found dead—the news stories had been chary with the details.

"We're thinking it might be werewolves," Dean drawled.

The doctor gave him an impassive, but oddly searching look. "It's not werewolves," he finally said.

Dean's eyebrows went up, and Sam scoffed.

"These recent bodies aren't werewolves," the vet amended.

"But there are other bodies that are?" Sam asked incredulously, if without much hope of being answered.

The vet just looked at him. Sam resisted the urge to punch the man.

Dean narrowed his eyes. "OK. What about the animal strangeness? There were what seem to be werewolf prints in the woods where the deer ran into the car."

Deaton considered this, frowning thoughtfully. "It may be that there are several things happening at once right now."

"If the _recent_ bodies aren't due to werewolves, what killed those kids?" Sam asked. "Serial killer?" He proposed it, but he was doubtful.

"I'm not sure."

Dean watched the man closely. "But you suspect."

The vet shrugged.

"What?" Sam bit out, losing patience.

The vet remained quiet.

"We can help, if you'll let us," Dean said.

An eyebrow went up. "Your 'help' isn't needed." The quotes around "help" were heavily implied even if the man did them the courtesy of _not _making quotey-fingers when he said the word.

"People have died," Sam said tightly. "Kids."

Again Deaton didn't respond.

Dean sighed and scrubbed a hand over his head. "Look, man. If you're worried about your pet werewolves, as long as they're not responsible, we can work something out that doesn't involve pumping them full of silver. I didn't kill Scott last night; I haven't gone after that other one. If they're not killing people, we won't kill them." He looked over at Sam, who gave a short nod.

"That's not the attitude of most hunters," Deaton said dryly.

"Yeah, well," Sam said heavily. "We're not most hunters."

xxxx


	4. Chapter 4

_Laoich_

_Chapter 4_

xxxx

"How are you feeling, Scott?"

"Better," said the boy. "Good, actually."

"I'm glad to hear that," Dr. Deaton said. "You gave young Stiles quite a scare." To the vet's surprise, the Stilinski boy wasn't present. When they'd brought Scott home last night, Stiles had been constantly under foot as the adults had half-carried, half-wrestled the teenager up to his room.

Now Scott was stretched out on the sofa, a glass of juice on the coffee table and a gaming controller in his hands. His color was considerably improved, and his face had lost the pinched, pained expression it had had the previous evening. "I know," he said ruefully. "I feel bad about that." He was jiggling the controller loosely and unconsciously.

"He's fine." This was from Isaac, who was slouched in another chair, holding the matching game controller. The boys had paused the game when Deaton entered, but their eyes kept straying restlessly to the screen as they talked. Alan knew better than to take it personally; the boys weren't being rude, they were just full of a certain nervous energy that was making it hard for them to settle, even while they were engaged with the vet.

"Where is he?" Deaton asked.

"The sheriff came and got him this morning," Scott said. He grinned a little. "His dad said he could smell him from the street, and he needed to go home, take a shower, and sleep before he could come back."

Isaac's nose wrinkled doubtfully. "He didn't smell any worse than usual," he observed.

Scott met Deaton's eyes with a good-humored roll of his own. Isaac had a lack of social awareness sometimes that was disarmingly sweet, Deaton thought. The vet was vaguely aware of what Isaac's situation at home had been, and it had been good to see Melissa McCall take in the boy so easily after Derek had kicked him out of the loft. Deaton realized that Derek had been trying to protect the young beta, but the rejection must have been a blow to Isaac nonetheless.

"Does the sheriff know what happened?" As far as Deaton was aware only Sheriff Stilinski among the parents was ignorant of what the kids were up to.

"Stiles told him we'd run out of gas, and I'd fallen down a hill or something while we were walking back. He convinced his dad he needed to stay here last night since we got back so late. Mom didn't mind."

Deaton raised an eyebrow at the boy. "How does your mom feel about you boys keeping that secret from the sheriff?"

Scott grimaced with a glance askance at Isaac. Isaac made a similar face.

"She doesn't like it," Scott admitted. "Like, at _all_. But Stiles doesn't want his dad to know. I guess maybe he thinks he can protect him. I think maybe he's afraid his dad will charge in after the alphas or something; get himself hurt. Or killed."

"I see Stiles's point, but I'm not sure that keeping important information – like powerful werewolves who are possibly killing people in town – is a better option in terms of keeping his father safe."

Deaton gave Scott a pointed look, and Scott shrugged. Not dismissively, but helplessly.

Deaton shook his head. He'd considered telling the sheriff himself more than one time. But he had doubts about how the man would take that information from him. He rubbed a hand over his head and sighed. "Let me look at those wounds." He moved closer to Scott.

Obligingly Scott lay back and pulled his shirt up. Even before removing the bandages, Deaton could see a difference—the skin that had been inflamed and bruised around the gauze only hours before was a healthy pink. The wounds underneath the white squares were almost completely healed. Deaton poked and prodded, occasionally checking Scott's face for signs of discomfort, but there were none.

"OK, Doc?" the boy finally asked.

"It looks OK," the vet agreed. The herbs that Derek Hale had given Deaton to treat Scott's wounds had done their job quite effectively. If the wounds had come from the alphas, and Deaton was sure that they had, Derek's concern had been that they wouldn't heal properly, and that probably accounted for the level of pain Scott had been in. "What about the arm and leg?"

Scott raised his arm, flexing an impressive bicep, and Deaton saw there wasn't any sign that the flesh there had been punctured by two arrows the night before. When Scott lifted his leg, Deaton saw the same thing in the muscle of the boy's calf.

"He fit for duty?" Isaac's eyes were on the frozen images on the television, though Deaton knew the boy had been paying close attention. His fingers were idly rotating the joystick on the controller.

Deaton looked at Scott, who was poised to spring off the couch. "I'm going to leave that to his mother," Deaton said, and Scott subsided with a pout. "Those belly wounds are still healing. Another few hours of downtime won't hurt."

"Yeah, OK," Scott agreed on a grumble. He sat silent for a moment, then asked somewhat hesitantly, "Who was that guy? The one who helped us? Stiles said he's a hunter. Like the Argents."

"He is a hunter," Deaton agreed. "But not like the Argents. Not exactly."

"What does 'not exactly' mean?" Isaac's attention was now fully on Deaton.

"Do you know him?" Scott asked almost on top of Isaac.

"I know of him," Deaton said. "Of him and his brother." He sighed. "And they're not exactly like the Argents in that they hunt all kinds of supernatural creatures. Although their family has mostly been connected with demons, at least recently."

"Demons?" Isaac's voice was a squeak.

"Their family?" Scott was focused on something else. "So they're like the Argents that way."

"No," Deaton said. "They're not a multi-generational hunting family." Though, admittedly, Deaton had heard odd rumblings of a hunters' dynasty on their mother's side. "Their immediate family was pulled into hunting when something supernatural killed their mother. The boys' father came to know something unnatural had happened and was determined to find out what had murdered his wife. Dean and Sam were swept along in their father's quest for vengeance."

"And demons?" Isaac asked shakily.

"My understanding is that it was a demon that killed Mary Winchester. I'm afraid I don't know much more than that." And he didn't. Not really. Although…

"Did they kill it? The demon that killed their mother?" Scott asked quietly.

"I believe they did. And that they lost their father in the process."

There was a beat of silence as the two teenagers digested this.

"If they're hunters, though, why did this guy help Scott and Stiles once he realized Scott's a werewolf?" Isaac asked.

"I don't know," Deaton admitted. He'd been surprised by that fact as well.

From what he'd heard about John Winchester's attitude toward the things he'd hunted, Deaton would have expected a similar philosophy from the man's older son. Scuttlebutt was that John Winchester had been tough as nails and ruthless toward the monsters he'd come in contact with; rumor also had it that Dean Winchester was his father's son to the core, with the same take-no-prisoners mindset when it came to hunting.

But the man Deaton had encountered at the clinic the night before and this morning had not struck Deaton as the hardened killer he would have expected. There was a hardness to the man certainly, but a weariness, too, and a brusque sort of kindness that had taken Deaton aback.

Sam Winchester, on the other hand…. There'd been nothing for years about the boy beyond the fact that Winchester had two sons. Deaton wasn't sure he'd even have remembered the kid existed if he hadn't seen him at Singer's so many years go. More recently, though, there had been other rumors. Dark rumors of death and demons and deals.

None of those things had been on Deaton's mind when he'd talked with the reporter who had interviewed him the previous day. Deaton had thought the man in his office a smart, analytical reporter, who had been tenacious in pursuing his line of questioning even in the face of Deaton's deliberate obtuseness. Sam "Jones" had been frustrated by his lack of progress, but unfailingly pleasant.

The second encounter had been slightly different. Sam had been more direct and much less patient. He hadn't been outright rude, but he also hadn't bothered to veil his frustration when Deaton was less than forthcoming with answers.

Of course, it made perfect sense that Sam would present himself differently with a witness he was interviewing than with a person who was familiar with the realities of the hunting world, who knew he was Sam Winchester. But in light of those rumors, Deaton couldn't help being intrigued. And cautious.

"What are he and his brother doing here?" Scott asked.

"Odd animal behavior is often an indication of the supernatural. They're here investigating. And now they're aware of the sacrifices."

"Are they…?" Scott hesitated, uncertain. "Are they staying?" He looked across at Isaac and back to Deaton. "If they're going to be investigating, what does that mean for us? Do we … help them?"

"I've told them what we know and suspect about the deaths. I would imagine we'll keep in touch." Deaton was definitely going to be keeping an eye on the Winchesters.

"Did you tell them about the alpha pack?"

"Not much detail," Deaton admitted. "But enough to give them a heads up." The Winchesters needed to know that all the werewolves they might encounter in town weren't like Scott and Derek.

xxxx

"So. Something committing virgin sacrifices and an alpha pack wanting to add to its membership." Dean took a drag on his beer. "Beacon Hills is a fun town."

Sam's smile was faint, but there. Which was an improvement Dean would take. Sam had always been a serious kid, but he'd managed to take it to a whole new level while Dean had been gone. Or maybe just since he'd been back.

"You think Deaton is telling us everything?" Sam skimmed his beer bottle in circles over the surface of the table.

"I think it's a safe bet to assume he's not," Dean noted wryly, and Sam nodded his agreement. "You think the kids are going to be as circumspect?" he added thoughtfully.

Sam raised an eyebrow at him.

"I could go check on Scott. See if he'll tell me anything more."

"You're going to go pump an injured kid for information?"

Dean shrugged. "He's a werewolf. He's probably all healed up by now," he said flippantly.

Sam's eyes met Dean's for the briefest instant, smile playing at their corners, before he shook his head.

"Wanna come?" Dean asked before he thought. They'd tended toward splitting up recently. For his own part, Dean's reasons had been a combination of hurt/annoyance over Sam's failure to look for him while he'd been in purgatory and the knowledge, or at least the suspicion, that Sam wasn't eager to keep him company anyway. Even if Dean had wanted him to. Which he hadn't. Much.

"Uh."

Dean could tell Sam was caught off guard by the offer and when Sam started to move his head in a way that looked negative, Dean felt the familiar frisson of anger and hurt that seemed to characterize his relationship with his brother these days.

"Yeah." Sam said, surprising Dean. Sam's tone was careful, but Dean thought, around his own startled response, a little pleased, too. "Yeah, sure."

"Good." Dean went for "normal"—like it hadn't been weeks (months, if you counted purgatory) since they'd really done this together. "You finished?" He dug in his pocket for tip with his left hand while he used the right to pour the last of his beer into his mouth.

"Yep." Sam already had a wad of bills out that he tossed on the table. "I got it."

xxxx

The woman who answered the door at the teenaged werewolf's house did not look old enough to be the mother of a high school student. She was lovely, and her eyes, when they landed on Dean, lit up, though there was caution there as well.

"Dean." She held her hand out. "I didn't get a chance to thank you for what you did for Scott last night."

His brother reached out and shook her hand. "It was no problem," he said. "I was wondering how Scott was doing. I hope it's OK that we stopped by." Dean smiled his most disarming smile before shifting slightly to the side. "This is my brother, Sam."

"I'm Melissa," she answered, shaking Sam's hand as well. "It's nice to meet you." She didn't open the door any farther or invite them in, though. "Yeah. See, the thing is Alan Deaton told me what you are. Hunters, right?" There was nothing to do but nod affirmatively to that question, and the woman smiled tightly. "Yeah. So I don't feel real comfortable asking you in, given who my son is." She was almost apologetic about it, but she wasn't yielding either.

"I get that," Dean said sincerely. "I do." He cleared his throat. "The thing is… there's something going on in this town. Something that's killed three high school kids in pretty horrific ways, something that's," and here he inclined his head past the woman in the doorway to the kid Sam presumed was somewhere in the house, "shooting another kid full of arrows and leaving him to die in the woods."

Melissa McCall's face startled when Dean mentioned the murdered high school kids and paled when he described what had happened to her son.

"We don't know what's happening exactly," he said, "but Sam and I want to stop either of those things from happening again."

The woman in front of them bit her lower lip uncertainly. "I… I can't risk…."

"Scott won't be at risk," Dean promised her. "Not from us. Not as long as he's not hurting anyone."

"He's not," the boy's mother asserted. There was no uncertainty.

"OK," Dean said simply, turning to look at Sam.

"Yeah," Sam agreed. And he did. If the kid wasn't involved, leaving him alone was acceptable to Sam. Though he knew they'd be checking in.

"OK," said Melissa shakily, starting to open the door. "Come in, then, I guess." They eased past her, and she shut the door behind them. "You should know, though, that I have a bat. And I'm not afraid to use it."

"Understood," Dean said, sliding an amused grin at Sam where the woman couldn't see it.

"Focus," Sam whispered, though he was hiding a smile himself.

Dean gave him a mock-offended glare before preceding his brother into the living room.

There was a surprising number of kids in the room, including the two girls that Sam had interviewed the previous day.

"Dean. Hey!" One of the boys jumped up slightly awkwardly from the couch. "What are you doing here?"

Sam lifted his chin slightly and sent a tight smile to the two girls across the room, both of whose eyebrows had risen when he entered. The shorter, red-headed girl gave him the same long once-over he'd received when they'd met. If Dean saw it, it would be Sam on the receiving end of accusations of being "creepy."

"This is my brother, Sam."

Turning without thought at the sound of his name on his brother's lips, Sam moved to Dean's side equally unthinking.

"Hey."

"Sam, this is Scott, and that's Stiles."

"How are you feeling?" Sam asked. The kid looked perfectly healthy to him.

"Good," Scott said slowly, warily, eyes going to Dean and then seeking out his mother, still on the periphery of the group.

Melissa McCall moved forward now. "Dean wanted to see how you're doing." She paused, "And he said he and Sam are hunting whatever killed those poor kids…"

Melissa trailed off like she wanted to say more, but wasn't sure about saying it. The silence in the room was long and somehow considering.

"Virgins," Stiles blurted out.

Sam knew his eyebrows had just mimicked Dean's. The Winchesters already knew this from Deaton, but it was interesting to Sam that this Stiles kid had been so forthcoming.

"They were all virgins. The kids. And they were sacrifices."

"Yes," said Scott's mother. "We think they were virgin sacrifices."

Dean took that moment to give Sam a speaking look. It was the look Sam had gotten when the vet had told them the same thing. _I think it just goes to show that being ____easy__ is pretty much all upside____._

"Dr. Deaton told us that." Sam ignored his brother. "Do you have any ideas on what the sacrifices might have been for?"

"We don't know," Melissa said, giving Stiles an oddly gentle look.

"Um. Excuse me." The red-headed girl—Lydia, Sam remembered—inserted herself into the conversation. "Who _are_ these guys?" Her impatient, annoyed look seemed to encompass the entire room, though it focused most particularly on Stiles.

"Oh! Sorry!" Stiles cleared his throat when the words came out somewhat rough and stumbled over himself to introduce everyone now. "That's Dean, the hunter we were just telling you about. And his brother Sam. Also a hunter." He pointed to the girls. "Lydia. Alison." He looked at Dean. "Alison's family is like all-hunter, but they've retired now. Except Alison kind of hasn't. But her dad has." Now he pointed to the other boys. "And that's Isaac"—tall, porcelain-pale, and skinny—"and Boyd"—large, dark-skinned, and an impassive expression. Stiles hesitated. "They're, uh."

"Stiles." Scott said it sharply, and the other boy didn't go on.

But Dean had already realized what Stiles was going to say. As had Sam. "They're werewolves," Dean guessed. His eyes narrowed slightly. "Are they in Derek's pack?"

No one answered immediately.

"Are you?" Dean addressed the question directly to the two boys.

"Yeah," Isaac finally acknowledged.

Boyd shrugged what seemed like assent.

"This is a weird-ass town, man," Dean breathed as an aside to Sam, shaking his head. "So," he went on more loudly. With a hand he made a circling gesture at the gathered kids. "Is this it? Or are there other groups of non-alpha, teenaged werewolves running around town that Sam and I need to be aware of?"

Scott's mom answered the question with a slightly amused expression on her face. "This is it." Then her brow wrinkled. She looked at her son and then around the circle. "Right?"

The kids exchanged glances that weren't exactly reassuring.

"Well," Stiles hedged. "There's Aiden and Ethan," he said. "I guess they're technically teenagers. They're at our school. But they're in the alpha pack, so…." He looked at Isaac and then at Dean. "They're twins, and they do this," he made a weird weaving motion with his hands before linking his fingers together, "merging thing where they make one enormous werewolf."

"Awesome." Dean met Sam's eyes. Deaton hadn't mentioned Voltron werewolves. "That's new." Sam nodded. "Is there anything _else_ we need to know in terms of werewolves around here?"

"Well," Lydia said. "There's Cora and Peter."

"Who?" Dean asked.

"Cora is Derek's little sister; their whole family is werewolves," said Stiles, "And Peter is their uncle, so…"

Sam continued to listen and observe as his brother talked, primarily to Stiles, but also with the other kids as they added information to the Winchesters' understanding of the wolves in the area. It was somewhat amazing to Sam that the whole group was so open with Dean. They trusted him already Sam could tell.

When it came to the supernatural, Dean exuded a confidence that these kids couldn't seem to help responding to. It was becoming clear to Sam that the high schoolers had been largely on their own until recently, dealing with a frightening new universe, only just discovering that monsters existed. And where some of their best friends had been turned.

Melissa McCall was even newer to the life than the kids, and she was honest about her own initial reaction to the change Scott had gone through.

"I locked myself in my room for a week," she said regretfully. "I wouldn't even talk to him."

"It's OK, Mom," Scott said earnestly. "You've been awesome. You just had to get used to it. We all did."

His mother shook her head at him ruefully. "He's very forgiving," she said to Dean and then Sam with a smile.

Sam could see the respect in Dean's eyes as he watched this woman and her son. And he couldn't help but feel like he was getting a glimpse into what Dean must have been like with Lisa and Ben. No-nonsense, but kind with the kids; supportive and oddly gentle with the mother. Sam sometimes forgot this part of who his brother was; even after all they'd been through, this was an aspect of Dean that was remarkably constant.

Sam sighed, and Dean glanced his way with a quizzical expression. Sam smiled slightly and shook his head, forcing himself back to the matter at hand. The run-down of the werewolf population – the alphas in particular – was sobering. But….

"Is there a connection between the killings—these virgin sacrifices—and the alpha pack?" Sam asked when there was an opening in the conversation.

Heads shook around the room, uncertainty rather than denial, Sam could tell. "We don't know," Stiles said.

"And it's just the three killings? Just virgins?"

Nods this time.

Sam looked at his brother. "I wonder if that's all that was needed for whatever the ritual is." He raised an eyebrow. "Or if there are more sacrifices to come."

Dean drew in a deep breath and blew it out roughly.

"Yeah."

xxxx


End file.
